"County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon," wrote Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden a lawsuit declaration. "This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services." Bowden's declaration was included in a lawsuit, filed by 22 US states, to reinstate net neutrality.
Bowden also said its fire department had to pay double to remove the throttling on its "unlimited" data plan: "Verizon representatives confirmed the throttling, but rather than restoring us to an essential data transfer speed, they indicated that County Fire would have to switch to a new data plan at more than twice the cost, and they would only remove throttling after we contacted the Department that handles billing and switched to the new data plan," Bowden wrote.
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